Warning of implications, UFT files appeal in teacher ratings case

moving on up

August 30, 2011

Warning of implications, UFT files appeal in teacher ratings case

by Philissa Cramer, at 6:01 pm

The city’s plan to release teachers’ rating data to news organizations threatens public employees across the state.

That’s one argument the United Federation of Teachers is making as it moves toward its final attempt to prevent teachers’ individual ratings from going to press. Last week, the state’s Appellate Court echoed a low-level judge in ruling that the ratings, known as Teacher Data Reports, are public information and should be released.

Today, the union asked the Appellate Court for permission to take the case to the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. If the Appellate Court doesn’t grant permission, the union can also ask the Court of Appeals itself. The Court of Appeals doesn’t accept every case brought before it, and if it declines to hear this one, the Appellate Court’s decision would stand and the union would be out of options.

The Court of Appeals is more likely to take on cases that are potentially precedent-setting. Today’s filing stresses the “considerable violence to the limited but real privacy protections public employees possess” that the release of Teacher Data Reports could inflict, in addition to noting, as the union has done repeatedly, flaws in the reports themselves.

“In finding that the subjective, evaluative, and pre-decisional information contained in the inaptly named Teacher Data Reports, or ‘TDRs,’ is not exempt from public disclosure under FOIL, this Court has significantly narrowed the rights not only of new York City teachers but of all public employees in the State of New York,” the filing begins.

The UFT’s complete filing is below.

Watcher

The problem with this situation is twofold: 1) The DOE explicitly stated to the UFT that the reports were to be kept confidential and a fair agreement was made before the FOIL request went through. Now it looks like the DOE is going to hand over the reports to the various newspapers and thus there is a massive lack of trust between the union and the DOE. The UFT simply can not nor should not trust the DOE on keeping it’s word in future negotiations. 2nd) As stated in the appeal request, there will be a very real threat to NY teachers safety if these reports, flawed or not are released. There will be screaming and hostile parents who will be literally banging on classroom doors demanding that their children be placed with a “better” teacher. These two facts are unavoidable if the TDR’s are released. Lastly, a Los Angeles teacher committed suicide a couple of years ago when his TDR score did not improve. (He was an outstanding teacher who worked in a very difficult urban school) Welcome to the complete scapegoating of society’s ills falling on the backs of teachers.
old teach

The legal aspects of this lawsuit may in fact lead to the publication of the Teacher Data, the UFT may not be successful. However if the department of education and chancellor Walcott allow this to take place after former chancellor Klein promised that such data would not be used for that purpose then the UFT should consider releasing information that they possess to inform the public of data that will not be beneficial to the departments reform initiatives. For example true safety incidents, expenditures indicated on the galaxy budgets, other information that will embarass the department and their childrens first hypocracy.
el flerpo

There’s no “if” about it at this point. The DOE will absolutely release the reports if the decision is affirmed. The DOE has already made its determination that the records do not fall under an exemption. Thus, under FOIL, it is obligated to release them now.

I don’t think a full-scale data dump war between the DOE and the UFT is going to help anybody, including teachers.
Smith

The UFT could respond to this attack by having its high school teachers give kids exactly the grades they deserve — including on Regents exams – rather than artificially inflating the passing rates. But the leadership has neither the guts nor the organizing skills to pull off this kind of action. The DOE will win again and Mulgrew will tell everyone how unfair it all is and that nothing can be done.
guest

If the UFT loses this, it will be quoted WHEN teachers are physically attacked. And, they will be attacked.

Can Klein be sued since he signed the deal to keep it in-house?
EdintheApple

The Appelate Court denied the union appeal unanimously – it is extremely unusual for the Court of Appeals to accept a case that was unanimously decided. The New York State FOIL statute is among the strongest in the nation – the exceptions are limited and voluminous case law supports the “public right to know.” I wrote about the issue at length:
http://mets2006.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/michael-mulgrew-versus-the-department-of-education-balancing-the-publics-right-to-know-with-a-teachers-right-to-privacy/
bookworm

Prepare for lynch mobs targeting the “bad teachers”. You will not be safe at school, they can find your car, and even find out where you live. Nice. Who signed me up for this? I just wanted to help kids learn to read.
el flerpo

“The Appelate Court denied the union appeal unanimously – it is extremely unusual for the Court of Appeals to accept a case that was unanimously decided.”

A party has the statutory right to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals if the Appellate Division’s decision had two dissents. Otherwise (and assuming that no other conditions for an appeal-as-of-right exist), a party must obtain leave to appeal. When you write that it’s “extremely unusual for the Court of Appeals to accept a case that was unanimously decided,” are you just saying that leave to appeal is rarely granted as a general matter? Or are you saying that among cases that don’t qualify for a double-dissent right of appeal, there is a significant difference between the rate at which the Court grants appeals from decisions with a single dissent and with no dissents? If so, what’s your source? I’d be interested in seeing the stats.
el flerpo

“The Appelate Court denied the union appeal unanimously – it is extremely unusual for the Court of Appeals to accept a case that was unanimously decided.”

A party has the statutory right to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals if the Appellate Division’s decision had two dissents. Otherwise (and assuming that no other conditions for an appeal-as-of-right exist), a party must obtain leave to appeal. When you write that it’s “extremely unusual for the Court of Appeals to accept a case that was unanimously decided,” are you just saying that leave to appeal is rarely granted as a general matter? Or are you saying that among cases that don’t qualify for a double-dissent right of appeal, there is a significant difference between the rate at which the Court grants appeals from decisions with a single dissent and with no dissents? If so, what’s your source? I’d be interested in seeing the stats.
I noticed that…

@Smith: The TDR is based on 4-8 graders, not high schoolers.
John G

And, if what you described happened, it would be an organized work action and a violation of the Taylor law.
This was the issue that outraged me so much that I started reading, learning, commenting and tweeting about the ills and evils of the reform movement. I am happy to report that, partly because of this issue, reformers are becoming more and more split each day.
Reformers are going to get the blame for this in the public eye (my beloved union will see to that) and they’re going to be seen as performing yet another massive overreach and insulting teachers. The backlash from this will benefit our side at the expense of them. Fort the reformers at Tweed, who decided to simply not fight these requests, it Will be a very empty victory.
el flerpo

No, not Klein individually, the defendant would have to be the DOE, and the lawsuit would be for breach of contract. The suit would have big problems with pretty much every element (e.g., is the letter from the DOE in fact a “contract,” did the DOE actually breach the contract, what damages has the UFT suffered, and what remedy could the court grant).
el flerpo

“And, if what you described happened, it would be an organized work action and a violation of the Taylor law.”

John G: Do you mean a violation of the Taylor’s anti-strike provision? Are you saying that changing grading criteria would be construed as a work slowdown or stoppage?
BxTeacher

And prepare for suicides…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/28/rigoberto-ruelas-suicide-_n_742073.html
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_16191408

Blaming teachers is not going to fix the system, it will make it worse when you disillusion those great teachers who are being constantly barraged. Sorry a value added statistical formula can’t account for poverty, a shitty home life or parent or sheer lack of a role model. Put more responsibility where it belongs, on parents.
BxTeacher

And prepare for suicides…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/28/rigoberto-ruelas-suicide-_n_742073.html
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_16191408

Blaming teachers is not going to fix the system, it will make it worse when you disillusion those great teachers who are being constantly barraged. Sorry a value added statistical formula can’t account for poverty, a shitty home life or parent or sheer lack of a role model. Put more responsibility where it belongs, on parents.
Smith

I know.
Smith

It’s not illegal to organize teachers to stand up for themselves and resist attacks on the integrity of the grading process.

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August 30, 2011

Warning of implications, UFT files appeal in teacher ratings case

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